New York Markets After Hours

NewsWatch: Summary of business news

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Rate hike widely expected

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- If markets and economists are confident they know the Federal Reserve's policy destination Tuesday, it's probably because Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gave them a clearly marked road map. Interest rate have priced in a quarter-point rate hike in the key Fed funds rate target, assigning a 95 percent certainty to a tightening of monetary policy when the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee meets Tuesday. A raft of strong employment-related data has largely fostered the air of near-inevitability surrounding the meeting. "Those are the indicators (Greenspan) pointed to, so it would be very surprising if they didn't move," said Peter Janovskis, research director at OakBrook Investments in suburban Chicago.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Stocks bulled their way back into investors' good graces Friday, aided by a chunky rally in bonds that pressed the key 30-year yield below the 6 percent barrier for the first time in four weeks. The onset of an August weekend and caution ahead of Tuesday's Federal Reserve meeting capped trading activity. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, -0.05%
advanced 136.77 points, or 1.2 percent, to 11,100.61. The gauge stood just 1.3 percent off its intraday record of 11,251.65 set July 19. The Nasdaq Composite
$compq
ascended 26.90 points, or 1.0 percent, to 2,648.33 to rest about 8 percent south of its July 19 record. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
SPX, +0.01%
rose 1.0 percent. The Russell 2000 Index
RUT, +0.34%
of small-capitalization stocks gained 0.4 percent.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Treasurys flourished Friday, though gains came on extremely light and choppy trading as caution prevailed ahead of next week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Treasury prices have bounced back and forth without much conviction since the release of Tuesday's consumer price index in the absence of news for the market to hang its hat on. Market watchers expect an aimless drift into next week's policy-setting meeting as dealers keep their powder dry. The 30-year bond added 13/32 to yield
TYX, +0.36%
6.005 percent. A low yield of 5.98 percent was reached in intra-day dealings on Friday. The 10-year , meanwhile, put on 7/32 to yield
TNX, +0.41%
5.870 percent. The 5-year was up 3/32 to yield 5.787 percent.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) --After Thursday's respite, cyber shares regrouped on Friday, either rising or holding onto recent gains as investors found solace in several reports this week, pointing to a healthy online shopping and advertising season going forward. The Goldman Sachs Internet Index gained 1.7 percent Friday to close out the week with a 3 percent pop and score its second consecutive week of gains.The Amex Internet Index rose 2.3 percent. With the exception of America Online
aol
the other big cap Net names, dubbed the Net blue chips, such as Yahoo
yhoo
Amazon.com
AMZN, -0.13%
and EBay
EBAY, +0.19%
closed out the week on the upside.

Agile Software dances on debut . . . NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Agile Software nearly doubled on their Wall Street debut Friday in a $59 million initial public offering that was priced above its original range. The San Jose, Calif.-based company's stock
AGIL, +0.63%
closed at 39 7/8, well above its $21 offering price, but significantly less than the high of 55 1/4 for the day. Shares opened at 43 1/2. Volume totaled about 6 million shares.

CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- The Chicago Stock Exchange is throwing its hat into the growing ring for after-hours trading, setting an Oct. 1 target launch for a late session. Targeting retail investors, the exchange's Board of Governors on Thursday backed a proposal to trade the stocks making up the S&P 100 and Nasdaq 100 indices and up to 100 other actively-traded issues. The exchange, where institutional investors only can currently make after-hours trades, is targeting retail investors -- basically the online and discount trading population -- with the offer.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) --After Thursday's respite, cyber shares regrouped on Friday, either rising or holding onto recent gains as investors found solace in several reports this week, pointing to a healthy online shopping and advertising season going forward. The Goldman Sachs Internet Index gained 1.7 percent Friday to close out the week with a 3 percent pop and score its second consecutive week of gains. The Amex Internet Index rose 2.3 percent. With the exception of America Online
aol
the other big cap Net names, dubbed the Net blue chips, such as Yahoo
yhoo
Amazon.com
AMZN, -0.13%
and EBay
EBAY, +0.19%
closed out the week on the upside.

TOKYO (CBS.MW) -- A trio of major Japanese banks announced a broad alliance Friday that will hasten consolidation in the country's bloated, inefficient banking industry and create the world's first trillion-dollar bank. The three banks -- the Industrial Bank of Japan, Fuji Bank, and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank -- said they'll set up a joint holding company by the autumn of next year and integrate their businesses by the spring of 2002. IBJ, a long-term credit specialist, and commercial lenders Fuji and DKB will hold equal stakes in the new entity, the presidents of the three banks said at a press conference.

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. long-distance. phone carrier saw its shares slide Friday after one brokerage cut its rating and several others trimmed earnings estimates for fiscal 2000. On Friday, Lehman Brothers downgraded Sprint to a "market outperform" from a buy. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, trimmed profit projections. Analysts cited concerns about the company's wireless business and about the price war in long-distance consumer service.

NEW YORK, (CBS.MW)-- Shares of copper miners Cyprus Amax Minerals and Asarco soared as the companies revealed plans to proceed with their planned merger despite an unsolicited move by competitor Phelps Dodge to acquire both firms with stock. Phelps Dodge
PD, +2.10%
a miner of copper that also operates a manufacturing unit, offered Friday to swap 0.3756 share of its own stock for each Asarco
AR, +1.04%
share, which equals a 19 percent premium over Asarco's current stock price. Phelps Dodge also offered 0.2874 share for each share of Cyprus Amax
CYM, -0.09%
equivalent to an 18 percent premium over Cyprus Amax's stock price.

SALT LAKE CITY (CBS.MW) -- Novell reported more progress in its turnaround efforts, saying earnings doubled to a stronger-than-expected $49 million in its third quarter. That worked out to 14 cents a share, compared to the year-ago figure of $27 million, or 7 cents. Analysts expected the company
novl
to earn 13 cents per share. Since Eric Schmidt took over the company more than two years ago, he has cleaned out the sales channel, stanched the flow of red ink and narrowed the product lineup. All of this has helped Novell turn itself around, and shares have tripled under Schmidt's watch.

BURBANK, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- A published report Friday said Walt Disney Co. has agreed to sell its Fairchild Publications unit to Conde Nast Publications for $650 million. The New York Times reported that the deal could be announced as early as Friday. A Disney spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. Disney's Fairchild unit includes consumer magazines W, Los Angeles, Jane and Women's Wear Daily, along with a number of trade publications.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- NBC reportedly is in talks to take a 32 percent stake in Paxson Communications, now a hot ticket in the media business after a government rule change. NBC spokeswoman Kassie Canter declined comment. Paxson
PAX, +0.01%
spokeswoman Lea Sloan didn't immediately return a call. Paxson CEO Lowell "Bud" Paxson has been talking to every major content player in the industry, including NBC, said Bishop Cheen, analyst at First Union Capital Markets. But NBC "has been the most aggressive in having multiple platforms," he said, considering its three cable networks (CNBC, MSNBC and a partial stake in A&E) and its Internet ventures, including 60 percent of the Snap portal and other Web companies.

Internet stocks are famous -- even notorious -- for being driven by retail investors. Their massive swings are regularly marked in 100- to 500-share increments. Still, SmartMoney theorizes, institutions can't all be "hopeless antediluvians who will never embrace the Internet." With that in mind, SmartMoney sought out the Internet names with the highest percentage of mutual-fund backing. It found that funds hold only 12 percent of EBay's outstanding shares
EBAY, +0.19%
and 23 and 26 percent of Yahoo's
yhoo
and Amazon's
AMZN, -0.13%
respectively. So which Net stocks are fund managers really in? Online service giant America Online
aol
and e-commerce software maker BroadVision
"
to name two. Institutions own more than half of each. But institutions are also big on some smaller names, SmartMoney found. Among them: 24/7 Media
tfsm
Sportsline USA
SPLN, +0.00%
Verio
vrio
and Globix
gbix

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Add another reason for the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates -- June?s record trade deficit. So why is this a problem for the Fed? Because until recently, these imported goods helped satisfy domestic demand while easing pressures on productive capacity. This kept U.S. companies from raising prices. But in the past few months the dollar has weakened against a number of currencies. The euro has risen more than 5.5 percent against the dollar in the past few weeks alone while the yen has jumped by over 10 percent.

N'YAWK (CBS.MW) -- Maybe it's La Niña, or that eclipse, or global warming. But Zapman think it's that crazy Internet culture. Here's the thing: the once hopelessly mellow population of Northern California has gradually shifted to Internet time, in which one hour is like seven hours anywhere else. So when Zapman returned to his old stompin' grounds in N'Yawk this week, everything seemed to be in slow motion. Instead of sensing an attitude like "get out of my way because I'm a New Yorker and I'm in a big damn hurry, creep," the New Yorkers suddenly seemed to be saying, "Wow, baby, let's stop and smell those funky roses!!"

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- If there's one question we get all the time around here, it's why Wall Street banks aren't more generous with their research reports. After all, individual investors are starting to call the shots when it comes to the pricing of initial offerings. Main Street investors are also adding a ton of liquidity to the trading of U.S. stocks, especially the ones with technology stripes.

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